As winter weather settles in across the country and electricity bills become a major issue in households, most Americans will continue to rely on traditional heating sources such as heating oil, natural gas, and electric furnaces. But in some cases, cryptocurrencies are generating heat, and if some of the early proponents of the cryptocurrency heat industry are correct, the use of cryptocurrencies as a heat source inside homes and buildings will one day become far more widespread.
Let’s start with the basics. The computing power of cryptocurrency mining generates a lot of heat, most of which ends up just being vented into the air. According to digital asset brokerage K33, the Bitcoin mining industry generates around 100 TWh of heat per year, enough to heat all of Finland. This waste of energy in a highly energy-intensive industry has led entrepreneurs to look for ways to reuse heat in homes, offices, and other locations, especially during the colder months.
During the frigid weather earlier this year, The New York Times reviewed the HeatTrio, a $900 space heater that doubles as a Bitcoin mining device. Some people are using the heat generated when they are mining cryptocurrencies at home to spread warmth throughout their homes.
Jill Ford, CEO of Bitford Digital, a sustainable Bitcoin mining company based in Dallas, said: “I’ve seen Bitcoin rigs quietly running in attics and the heat they generate is rerouted into the home’s ventilation system to offset heating costs. This is a smart use of energy that would otherwise be wasted.” “Harnessing heat is another example of how crypto miners can have energy on their side if they get creative with the possibilities,” Ford said.
It doesn’t necessarily save anyone money on their electricity bill. Economics vary widely from place to place and person to person, based on factors such as local electricity prices and the speed of mining machines. However, this approach can generate revenue to offset heating costs.
“It costs the same as heating your house, but you get the bonus of being able to mine Bitcoin,” Ford said.
One mining machine is enough, even if it is an older model. Solo miners can join mining pools to share their computing power and receive proportional payouts, making returns more predictable and changing the economic equation.
“The concept of using crypto mining or GPU computing to heat your home is sensible in theory, because almost all of the energy consumed by computing is released as heat,” said Andrew Sobko, founder of Argentum AI, which is creating a marketplace for sharing computing power. But he added that the concept makes the most sense in large-scale environments, particularly in cold regions and high-density buildings such as data centers, where computing heat shows real promise as a form of industrial-scale heat recovery.
For it to work, the heat can’t just be transported somewhere by truck or train. Computing heat needs to be identified where it is needed and directed, such as co-locating GPUs in environments from industrial parks to residential buildings.
“We’re working with partners who are already redirecting computing heat to building heating systems and even greenhouse warming in agriculture. That’s where the economic and environmental benefits really make sense,” Sovko said. “Rather than trying to physically move heat, we move computing closer to where that heat provides value,” he added.
Why skeptics say cryptocurrencies won’t heat your home
There are many skeptics.
Derek Moll, a clinical associate professor at the University of Rochester’s Simon School of Business, doesn’t think the future of home heating lies in cryptocurrencies, and says even industrial cryptocurrencies have problems.
Mohr said Bitcoin mining is now so specialized that a home computer or even a network of home computers has almost no chance of helping you mine a block of Bitcoin, and that mining farms use specialized chips made to mine Bitcoin much faster than home computers.
“Bitcoin mining at home or within a network of home computers had some small success 10 years ago, but not now,” Mohr said.
“The Bitcoin heating devices I have seen appear to be simple space heaters that use your own electricity to heat a room… This is not an efficient way to heat your home,” he said. “Yes, Bitcoin mining generates a lot of heat, but the only way to get it into your home is to use your own electricity,” Mohr said.
He added that running a computer non-stop generates heat, but the probability of successfully mining a Bitcoin block is very low.
“In my opinion, this is not a real opportunity to work out. Instead, it’s taking advantage of what people have heard, which is the excess heat from Bitcoin mining and the profits from mining, and it’s giving individuals false hope that there’s a way they can profit from it,” Mohr said.
But some experts say the concept could become viable in more locations over time as plug-and-play freestanding mining rigs become more widely used. At the very least, they say, the economic and environmental benefits of dual-use are worth exploring, based on the fundamental fact that crypto mining generates significant heat as a byproduct of computer processing.
“How can we capture excess heat from operations and use it to power other things? That ranges from home heating to hot water to swimming pools,” said Nikki Morris, executive director of the Ralph Lowe Energy Institute at Texas Christian University.
She says the concept of crypto heating is still in its infancy and most people still don’t understand how it works or what the broader implications are. “That’s part of what makes this research so interesting. At Texas Christian University, we think we have an opportunity to help people build both their vocabulary and the feasibility of business use with industry partners,” Morris said.
Because crypto mining generates tradable digital assets, it introduces new sources of revenue from electricity consumption, which can be anything from the grid to natural gas, solar, wind or battery power, Morris said. He cited charging electric vehicles in complexes and apartment buildings as an example.
“Imagine a similar scenario where a crypto mining facility in a multifamily building generates both digital currency and usable thermal energy. This opens the door to distributed energy innovation to a wider range of stakeholders, and could be an approach that complements existing heating systems and renewable power generation strategies,” Morris said.
There are many questions to consider, including efficiency at different scales, integration with other energy sources, regulatory considerations, and overall environmental impact, Morris said. “But as these technologies evolve, it’s worth looking at the heating up of cryptocurrencies not just as a curiosity, but as a small window into how digital and physical energy systems will converge in the future.”
Testing Bitcoin’s fever in the real world
The future of crypto fever could be playing out in the city of Challis, Idaho, where Cade Peterson’s company Softwarm is repurposing Bitcoin heat to stave off winter.
Several stores and businesses in town are experimenting with softworm rigs for mining and heating. At TC Car, Truck and RV Wash, owners were spending $25 a day to heat their car wash bays to melt snow and warm water, Peterson said.
“Traditional heaters just consume energy and don’t give you anything in return. They introduced Bitcoin miners and made more money in Bitcoin than it costs to operate,” Peterson said. Meanwhile, an industrial concrete company offsets its $1,000 monthly bill to heat a 2,500-gallon water tank by heating it with Bitcoin.
Peterson has been using a Bitcoin mining rig to heat his home for two and a half years and believes heat will power almost everything in the future. “In a few years, you’ll be able to go to a hardware store and buy a water heater with a data port and use Bitcoin to heat your water,” Peterson said.
